What am I supposed to do with Shamen?

[tinkthank]

Thanks!

- Moonvine bracelets give +nature, not +astral

- I cant forge any +astral items with a shaman, however, so that means I need to cast Coatl (expensive, and also level 7 conjuration! ouch, definately not early-mid game for me), or put some astral on my pretender.

I'm a huge fan of starshine skullcaps; I also love astral nations (my favorite is Tien Chi, not really an "astral nation", but as S&A I get astral 2 before too long).
Banner of the Northern Star is of course great -- but I'll be damned if I can get a shaman to make one.

[Endoperez]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
Thanks!

- Moonvine bracelets give +nature, not +astral

Oops... I never remember that right.

- I cant forge any +astral items with a shaman, however, so that means I need to cast Coatl (expensive, and also level 7 conjuration! ouch, definately not early-mid game for me), or put some astral on my pretender.

If you have luck wíth sites you could Empower one of your shamans. 30 pearls vs 40 gems... You would have no natural Astral-3 mage, though. Also, you could wish to be lucky with independents, but as Crystal Amazons are very rare you cannot count on it.

I'm a huge fan of starshine skullcaps; I also love astral nations (my favorite is Tien Chi, not really an "astral nation", but as S&A I get astral 2 before too long).
Banner of the Northern Star is of course great -- but I'll be damned if I can get a shaman to make one.

Empower + Skullcap. As I said before, 30 pearls. Besides, it is faster than researching for Couatl. If you have no Astral income at all you don't need Skullcaps, and if you do you will be able to empower one of the shamans before or later.

Still, it's not an easy way to get even mediocre Astral mages.

[Blitz]

Well your pretender god may be able to forge the needed items, but remember with arcane probing, there's a decent chance of finding some kind of 2-astral mage out there, even if you don't have the SS on your god.

And if you don't have astral on your pretender, I'm betting you have a combat avatar... which means the really important astral items are the pendant and amulet anyway.

[djtool]

I've used them for making ivy crowns and pumping out vine men.

[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by djtool:
I've used them for making ivy crowns and pumping out vine men.

This is actually not a bad use for them, either, considering the poison immunity of the Vine Men (they ARE poison immune, right?)

Regarding the Keeper of the Tombs, however, I personally prefer the Keeper over the Shaman. While the Shaman may be the more useful mage outside of combat, the Keeper is a Holy-2 Mage, and I don't want to count the number of times I try to build Temples with Shamen.

Really, though, the Shaman IMO is the backbone of C'tis's research. A magic scale makes sense with C'tis anyway (fatigue help with Raise Dead and the like is really good for the Sauromancers).

One final way to get Shamen to forge +path items is to cast Forge, which requires some earth gems and an Earth pretender. Earth is far better on a survivability front than Astral, and lends itself well to a Shaman-rush Communion.

The other nice use for the Shaman is to Forge the basic nature items like Wineskins that you probably don't want your Sauromancers to be busy with.

[djtool]

Originally posted by Scott Hebert:
Really, though, the Shaman IMO is the backbone of C'tis's research.

I wouldn't like to have to spend 110gp for 4 res a turn...yuk

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by djtool:
I wouldn't like to have to spend 110gp for 4 res a turn...yuk

The initial cost is not particularly important to a sacred mage, which the Shaman is. It is the most cost effective researcher that C'Tis has. It also ranks just behind the Vaetti hag at 11th place in long term efficiency.

[ June 21, 2004, 14:38: Message edited by: Graeme Dice ]